July 30, 2005

Rick Santorum only receives 1.3 cents per Pennsylvanian, yet the national debt, a result of Congressional decision-making, is $35,000 per person, and the war in Iraq alone is now over $6 per person, with large increases likely in the future.

The Pennsylvania legislature annually passes a balanced budget, and has no fiasco remotely similar in per capita cost to the quagmire in Iraq.

The Pennsylvania legislature has played an important role in making Philadelphia a more attractive city, having been a major source of funding for the annual Welcome America Celebrations, the Avenue of the Arts, the Kimmel Center, the Constitution Center, the Convention Center, the Wachovia Center, the stadiums for the Phillies and the Eagles, and the conversion to productive peacetime purposes of the Philadelphia Naval Yard.

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The Pennsylvania legislature, in short, has played a major role in the successful and continuing transition of Philadelphia from an industrial city to a post-industrial city. Those who have come here because of what our city has to offer should understand that the legislature played a major role in Philadelphia's successful comeback.

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All this does not mean that Utopia has been achieved. Nor does it mean that Republican majorities in the state house and state senate have been converted to the Democratic philosophy of using governmental powers to help lift up the neediest. But it does mean that the recent flurry of legislature-bashing editorials, newspaper columns, and blog posts is both extreme and unwarranted.

I thought the fight against extremism was waaaaaay more than $6/person. From what I've read, the cost of the war is around $1B/day. That's about $4/person per day, $1460/year, $5840/4-person family per year.

If a person is making minimum wage, $5.15/hr, and working 40 hours a week, 51 weeks a year [7 days of being sick/personal leave/vaca], that person makes $10,506 before taxes.

I am not saying that the legislature didn't deserve a raise in that post nor this post. I have previously posted saying I agree that there should be some changes made to how things are done in Harrisburg. I am no insider. I am also very new to this state and it's politics.

I concur with Rep. Cohen that the PA legislature has done great things in this great state of which I am now a permanent resident. But I must respectfully disagree that the recent flurry of legislature-bashing editorials, newspaper columns, and blog posts is both extreme and unwarranted. Rather, I'd say that it seems that the editorials and blog posts have lit a fire under their feet.

Politicians, for what they do, [when and if they do it correctly] are probably underpaid. As underpaid as cops/firefighters/teachers? No, but underpaid nonetheless. Politicians are elected to represent their costituents and look out for them, to represent the sentiment of their section of the populace. When they do things that they are supposed to do, look out for the populace, there isn't much excitement, that is, after all, what they're paid to do. Recalling Chris Rock's socio-comedic observations: a Dad should not take pride in the fact the he takes care of his kids or not being in jail; a Dad shouldn't be in jail and he should be taking care of his kids. When a Dad doesn't take care of his kids or is in jail, that's when I'd question his parenting.

When the PA legislature passes a bill to give themselves a raise and does not pass a bill to also raise the minimum wage of their constituents [a bill that Cohen champions], I must cry afoul. I don't care if the legislature disagrees with me for crying afoul, whomever s/he may be, I'm doing it anyways. In this case, the legislature [as a whole] is not looking out for its constituents. I don't know how one could say otherwise.

I think that if Cohen had his way, he'd give himself a raise AND raise the minimum wage in this state of ours. I know that if I had the opportunity, I'd sure as hell give myself a raise, especially if it was the last time I could do so. But the rest of the House didn't feel that way. And that let the entire state down.

After a couple of failed attempts to get down to Philly from NY/NJ, the wandering AK will be coming to Philly before leaving the east coast to once again head to Chitown, this time for some law school ugliness [blech, school]. And in a sweet turn of events, my buddies 80 oz. and KT will also be coming to town from DC.

It's a bona fide college buddy reunion! Awesome. Super excited. And the best part? We're staying at the Ritz on the über über cheap! We got the hoooookup.

Tomorrow morning, I'm getting together with a dozen or so Philly area photobloggers in the Italian Market area for some morning/early afternoon photo taking fun. Our first get together was loads of fun last month and I expect this one to be great as well.

Funny, funny. I was just responding, here, to a few comments with more comments and I just got this message

In an effort to combat malicious comment posting by scripts, I've enabled a feature that requires a weblog commenter to wait a short amount of time before being able to post again. Please try to post your comment again in a short while. Thanks for your patience.

I publicly apologize myself for trying to maliciously comment on my own site. I don't recall every enabling a featue of this sort either. I guess I'm just trying to protect myself from... myself.

So that procrastination talk was in reference to an article I was asked to pen for Global Scene Magazine. They've been online for about three years and are now getting into the print game. Based out of Albany, NY, they're a mag covering the music scene, particularly heavy around the various large music conferences.

The Editor of the magazine somehow wound up either here or on Philly Future and read through my posts before, during and after Live8 Philadelphia and clicked through my Live 8 Photo Gallery on my photoblog. She asked me to write an article for their Fall issue and I agreed. That was around July 6th or so. Since then, I've been pretty busy editing down my Live 8 images, looking for a new apartment and getting up at the ass crack of dawn for my new jobby job.

Things finally settled down a little bit this week and I shot off about 400 words. I'll be mailing a CD of images later today up to Albany of the images I felt were the best of my twelve hours of shooting.

The article will be published at the end of September. I'm pretty psyched.

I've never really thought about the pay per capita breakdown of publicly elected officials, but I just read this article from the Inky on how Gov. Rendell is asking the PA House Dems to reconsider the stipping of posts of those who voted against the pay raise bill. The yearly base salary to constituent per capita breakdown of Pennsylvania via an AP analysis:

Look at me. I'm still the horrible procrastinator I was when I was in school — high school and college. Not that I thought I had changed or anything, but I forgot how bad I was. Oh well, my assignment got done and in before deadline. More details to come.

I've been listening to Air America Radio since it's inception on March 31st 2005. I haven't been listening to it as much lately because I don't have speakers at my office and I don't think I'm allowed to just sit here with headphones on. I also work in a field office of a construction site so I'm not gonna move the dial from the k-rock station to listen to The Al Franken Show and The Randi Rhodes Show from Noon until I leave.

And this morning, I read this article from the Inky on how "Liberal Air America Radio stuck in cellar" and I'm skeptical. Of the article that is, not the network. The network has grown from an initial five or so to sixty-seven as of today. So, over the course of the last sixty or so weeks, they've added a station a week. I know nothing about radio markets, but to be able to add a station a week? That sounds pretty good.

Gillin [the reporter] gets into the Franken v. Limbaugh thing.

Franken, best-selling author of such anti-conservative tomes as Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them and Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot, chose to go head-to-head with gabber Limbaugh in many markets. This, it turns out, was not such a good idea.

Limbaugh, still the giant among talkers, with 14.75 million listeners on 600 stations, has squashed Franken like a bug.

What's not noted is that most of Rush's 600 stations are tiny. Tiny stations in tiny towns scattered all over the place. Air America Radio reaches 80% of that 14.75 million potential listeners. And once again, this is after a little over a year. Radio takes forever to build. Rush has been at it for fifteen years spewing hate. Rush should, by his own standards, be in jail, the drug user he is. "Lock them up and throw away the key" was the phrase he liked to use about drug users. A guy who was kicked off of a tiny [ill-advised] gig on ESPN for spouting off some fuckhead comment about how Donavan McNabb is overrated because he's a good black quarterback. I remember watching that show and being dumbfounded. Dumbfounded that some fuckhead is stupid enough to say something like that, let alone on a very well watched Sunday night show about football where everyone knows that Donavan gets all this attention because he's a good fucking QB, not because he's black.

And then Gillin goes on to say

But while more seasoned hosts know how to shift the focus to other topics while awaiting the next election cycle, critics complain that Franken is still obsessed with bashing President Bush (when he is not baiting O'Reilly). In contrast to Limbaugh, who mocks his own pomposity, Franken comes across to critics as angry and not funny.

First off, who the fuck cares what stupid critics say? They're all just trying to drum up some attention to their stupid columns to get a bigger audience to get more money for more drivel. And secondly, Franken should be angry and bash Bush. Somebody's gotta do it. If the MSM refuses to engage this administration, how can you call out the only Liberal station for representing their audience? Franken is pretty mild-mannered at that [granted the MSM is just starting to wake up now]. I guess Gillin didn't take the time to listen to Randi Rhodes' show, which is on from 3p-7p here in Philly on 1340AM - WHAT. She's the one that made headlines by having Ralph Nader hang up on her on Day 1. She's the true star of the network, not Al and Katherine. She's the fifteen year talk-radio veteran who has gone head-to-head against Rush - in his home state - and beaten him. She's the one who's turning heads these days, not Al.

The Air America Radio network is new, good and growing. The conservatives have been slowly taking over for the past thirty years and lobbyists have been making it easier to do so. During Reagan's administration, they softened the broadcasting rules — repealing the Fairness Doctrine. You no longer had to give equal time to both sides of an argument. That opened up the floodgates for conservatives to overtake the AM airwaves - the Progressives and Liberals missed a chance here. Monopoly rules were softened. Vertical monopolies reporting 'news' like NewsCorp have moved in literally changing how 'news' is delievered to us every day.

Gillin's article missed a lot of stuff, but I do understand that there are space and time constraints. It also put a spotlight on the network, even if it was one that wasn't oh so favorable.

But don't take my word for it, go take a listen for yourself. 1340 WHAT here in Philly or head over to Air America Radio and stream it. My guess is that you'll be hooked from day one, just like I was. And if you either live to far away from Philly to make it to Drinking Liberally [Tuesdays @ Tangier 1801 Lombard] or are just too shy to come out, but are curious to hear the voice behind Atrios? He's a weekly guest on The Majority Report on AAR with Janeane Garafolo and Sam Seder. He's on tonight.